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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26385097">Trust No One (Even Yourself)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychophoenix/pseuds/psychophoenix'>psychophoenix</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>EXO (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Jongdae's Birthday Week 2020, M/M, Memory Loss, Out of Order, Out of Order Narrative, Unreliable Narrator, Xiuchen if you squint really hard, vaguely Ghajini-inspired, vaguely Memento-inspired</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:07:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>887</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26385097</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychophoenix/pseuds/psychophoenix</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's easy to warn yourself about trusting no one, but what if no one includes yourself? </p><p>Chen wakes up with no memories, with only a playing card with a cryptic note and some polaroids to point him in the right direction. </p><p>Except it happens over and over again.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Challenge #7 — Out of Order</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Trust No One (Even Yourself)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic is vaguely inspired by Memento and Ghajini, I admit. Masters of the non-linear and amnesia plot driver narrative. It's hard to pack such a complex kind of storytelling in flash fic format, but I hope I did it justice!</p><p>Can be read in a linear manner, but the events don't take place linearly.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Chen wakes up with the taste of booze in his mouth. There is a strange fuzzy quality to his senses, and a quick scan of his surroundings is enough to tell him that he does not know where he is. His hands twitch, and he is surprised to realize that he holds an item in each. In his left hand is a single playing card: the nine of hearts. His right grasps a polaroid of a hardly distinguishable figure. There appears to be a hastily scribbled note beneath it in his handwriting: <em>trust no one</em>.</p><p>"Oh my, you're in a sorry state." Hë drawls. Hë glances amusedly at the assortment of things on top of the dresser. There are a polaroid camera and refills, a pen, a playing card, and two masking tape rolls. "Losing time, are you?" With a cluck of his tongue, hë emphatically points at the nine of hearts. "My my, how interesting!" Hë exclaims gleefully.</p><p>There is not one, but a whole wall of polaroids waiting for him when he sits up in bed. Lined up all neatly, kept in place with clips on strings that ran horizontally throughout the wall. He can still taste the alcohol, and his head pounds as he struggles to make sense of the sight before his eyes. In the center of all the photographs is an upside-down playing card with the words, <em>find me</em>.</p><p>"You know..." hë trails off suggestively. "It's fun dropping by on you, but I figured I'd make things a little more interesting, you know?" With manic glee on his face, hë drops several polaroids into the mix. "Oops!" hë giggles. "So clumsy." With a snap of his fingers, the lights go off, and hë does a quick shuffle of the photographs. "Good thing you're about to pass out right about... now."</p><p>If he is estimating correctly, he's been doing this for a while. The wall is a mess of photographs, but one playing card is in their midst, which baffles him the most. Quite a few of the photographs depict some graphicly morbid scenes. He refuses to think about what the dates and times that are written beneath them mean. They seem like... trophies. He feels like he woke up in a movie. No memories except some vague flashes he doesn't understand, plus the Memento/ Ghajini-type scenario was not helping things in any way. A quick glance at the polaroid in his hand was no consolation. <em>Beware the scorpion's tail</em>, it said. What was that even supposed to mean?</p><p>"Don't blame me for the lost time." Hë chuckles. Hë glances amusedly at the assortment of things on the bed. There is twine, some wooden clips, a pen, and a polaroid camera and refills. "Going for a more organized style this time, huh?" With a cluck of his tongue, hë plays with the nine of hearts. "You better hurry. Loverboy asked you to find him, after all."</p><p>He freshens himself up to the best of his abilities and finally surmises that he is in a rental residence of some kind. None of the facilities look familiar, but then again, what is familiar to a man with no memories? Is he a detective of some sort? None of the polaroids tell him anything that he wants to know, however. A photo of the ground. Some ice cubes in a shot glass. An uncentered image of a newspaper headline, something about an eclipse? As he removes his rumpled and stained shirt in front of the mirror, he is met by tell-tale ink on his right shoulder. It's a scorpion, he decides. The identifiers are so: two large pincers, some legs connected to a body, and a barbed tail. Only, he does not have any idea what it means.</p><p>"Here, if you insist so much on taking these absurd photographs of yours!" Hë takes the polaroid in his hands and walks over to the mirror and snaps an image of himsëlf, a grin on his face. "So you know to watch out for më, eh?" But the flash is on, and the image that develops is hardly helpful, save for the silhouette of his jaw and one mismatched eye glinting like a warning. Hë flaps it in the wind to dry it and shoves his way back into the living room to grab a pen. Hë writes something on the picture: <em>trust no one, even yourself</em>, and tosses it on the bed. Hë appears to think it through for a moment before smudging the last two words away with his thumb. With a laugh, hë saunters out of the room.</p><p>Chen wakes up with a metallic tang in his mouth. His entire body feels sore, and he registers the smell of smoke and alcohol permeating the air from his clothes. His hands twitch, and he is surprised to realize that he holds an item in each. In his left hand is a single playing card: the nine of hearts. He flips it over, and the words <em>find me</em> are written on it, in vaguely familiar handwriting that is not his. His right grasps a polaroid of himself, taken at an awkward angle. He seems to have taken it himself. There appears to be a hastily scribbled note beneath it in his handwriting: <em>trust no one but yourself</em>.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm actually on the fence on whether to reveal the true construction of the story where it makes more sense, but maybe I will after the reveals. </p><p>In my head, this is actually a small part of a larger EXO narrative, my personal take on the whole EXO storyline that exists in the MVs. None of the rest of this narrative exists in fanfiction yet, just in my dreams, but the whole context is in the imaginary AU of mine. This isn't the last of this AU, but I'm glad that this Chen-centric one is the first to manifest.</p><p>Post-Reveal Edit: I've decided not to do an explanation on the whole construction because even then it wouldn't make much sense because I purposefully left things vague but for those who want a hint, I leave this phrase:</p><p>Reverse the odds even as you read in order.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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